Bastille Day in the garden

A bouquet of mid summer flowers

Garden Help

  When I lived in the city I had an aquarium filled with fish, and a terrarium with three  resident anoles. When we bought our house here in the country, I gave away the fish, and a couple of years later when the anoles died of old age, I dismantled the terrarium.  What need do I have of little make believe wild places here, surrounded by woods and fields full of life? 
  The many creatures that share my property both help and hinder my attempts to garden.  My dog Sol is is the link between our worlds.  He is a Basenji, a sight hound from Africa, and looks like a little dingo with a curly tail. When I'm home he is nearby, attentive, responsive to my commands.  When I'm away he is a hunter, stalking and killing small game in the garden.  He hunts with cunning and determination, despite the fact that he spent the first five years of his life as a showdog in a kennel.
  Sol keeps the deer away from my garden, though I often see them in the hayfield beyond the back fence. The squirrels keep their distance too, except in winter when they make an occasional foray on the bird feeder.  I'm not sure if the varmints are getting slower, or Sol is getting better at hunting, but this year he has been an especially effective hunter, dispatching a half dozen rabbits and two woodchucks too dumb or too slow to avoid him. 
  I'm a vegetarian, and I like to think of myself as a gentle soul.  But I have seen what rabbits and woodchucks can do to a garden. The last time I found Sol standing over a dead woodchuck and looking up at me expectantly I said 'good boy' and meant it.
  Sol does not hunt birds, toads or snakes.  He will lie under a busy bird feeder and ignore them, and toads and snakes scare him. I'm glad, because these creatures both help my vegetable garden prosper and entertain me as they go about their busy lives. 
  My property is intentionally planted with shrubs, perennials and annuals that give birds food and shelter.  I cover the strawberries, but share the blueberries with the birds that eat  the insects in my garden and fill it with their calls and songs all spring, summer and fall. 
  I think a toad makes a garden lucky, and I should have a good year now that one is in residence. I first met him when he peered our from under the rain barrel several weeks ago. Soon he moved to the grass mulch around a big 'Tigress' zucchini plant, and he has been there a week.When I go out in the morning to crush cucumber beetles, there are very few on the toad's plant- I guess they are a delicacy to toads. When I water he sticks his wide brown head out of the burrow, and seems to enjoy the rain.
  There are chipmunks all over the garden, front and back, and they hibernate in my stone wall, which they share (apparently without conflict) with several garter snakes who like to lie on the warm stones in summer. The chipmunks have no fear of Sol, and chirp and chide him often as they dive into their many holes throughout the yard. They entertain me, and don't eat any vegetables.
 The snakes eat bugs, especially grasshoppers, and are always welcome in the garden, not only for their pest control,  but also for their smooth sinuous otherness.  
 I've never hired anyone to help me in the garden. I like the work, and it keeps me fit. Someday I will not be strong enough to do everything myself, and I'll have to consider downsizing, or paying someone.  But right now I've got all the garden help I need.
  

A New Garden Resident

Can you find the toad in the picture above?

More on this toad and other garden helpers tomorrow.

Rebar tower for pole beans made by Matt F

Legume Love

  Many gardeners consider tomatoes to be the consummate summer vegetable. They spend hours picking the right seeds from catalogs during the winter, carefully tending the seedlings in early spring, and watering and pruning the vines in July and August.  I like tomatoes, and grow several from seed, but they are not the summer favorites in my garden. 
  We like legumes, all of them. Legumes are members of the bean and pea family. This year I am growing three kinds of peas, four kinds of bush beans, and one each of pole beans, lima beans and fava beans, all in quantity.  My husband and I would be perfectly happy to eat beans or peas every night from June 21 (tomorrow, the start of summer) to frost. Even the dog is a bean fiend, often climbing the garden fences to steal them off the vines.  I have not yet grown soybeans or the foot long Chinese beans, but I look forward to trying them in a year or two when I build more beds in my garden.
  Beans are easier to grow than tomatoes. They don't need to be started inside; they are seeded directly into the garden.  However, gardeners who want a good crop of either peas or beans need to add a  special powder called 'Bean Inocculant', which contains the bacteria that helps their roots pull nitrogen out of soil.  This powder only needs to be added the first year beans or peas are planted in a garden, and   can be bought from most seed companies. 
   The peas went in first this spring, on St Patricks day, and then at about one week intervals for two more weeks. Next were the fava beas, which also like to grow in cool soil.  After the last frost ( in mid May) I began planting bush beans as early crops like lettuce, radishes, spinach and and arugula were either eaten, or pulled up because they were bolting to seed.
 Finally, in early June I planted the legumes that love hot weather- the pole beans and Lima beans. This is the first time I have grown Lima beans.  The variety I planted is 'King Of the Garden', a vigorous vining Lima that can grow to ten feet tall.  Many people think they don't like Limas  beans, but I think that is because no one eats them fresh, largely because they are a lot of work to shell.  Having bought and shelled Limas grown by 'Four Town Farm', a local grower, I know that fresh Lima's are delicate, tender and sublime. I can't wait to share the 'King of The Garden' with both my husband and dog, who I'm certain will agree.